Ways To Get A Good Deal At The Wine Shop

Been to the wine shop lately? Seen what`s happened to French wine (and Italian and American) prices? With few exceptions, every major category of wines has gone up in price over the last few years.

You can buy just about any wine you want in America, but most of us would rather not spend $25 on a bottle of wine if a little education could steer us to equally good ones for $10 or less.

Following are nine tips on how to do just that.

1. Get on their lists. Contact every retailer in your area and ask to be placed on the mailing list. Make a list of your favorite wine types and chart prices for them from the various stores.

2. Go to the tastings. Many merchants stage wine tastings. Most are walk-around, taste-as-you-go affairs, but some are formal sit-down events complete with commentary.

Whatever the format, they test the mettle of that debut $18 Cabernet Sauvignon against the $8 one from the established winery that has none of its construction costs in the bottle price. This is the perfect opportunity to judge for yourself whether it is worth $10 more or merely 50 cents.

3. Visit the restaurants. If you don`t know the list or feel intimidated by it or the wine steward, you might rush to judgment. If you know you will be dining at Chez Gazorp this Saturday, visit the place during the week.

Have a drink at the bar and ask to see the wine list and the menu. Make some notes: the types of wine you prefer, prices, vintages, etc. At home, pull out your favorite wine reference works-Hugh Johnson`s ``World Atlas of Wine`` (Simon & Schuster, $40) is highly recommended-and research that ``Chateau Low Profile`` at $15 on the list.

Become familiar with a few other names, think about some basic meal-mates and relax.

4. Buy by the case. The most common discount is the case (or multiple case) discount: 12, 750 milliliter bottles per case. Usually, there is a 10 to 15 percent case discount or a lesser discount for a mixed case.

5. Buy the larger sizes. In fine wine land, we`re usually talking magnums, which are double-bottles. The costs of making and shipping these rarer larger bottles may eat up any savings over the regular sizes, but for bulk (inexpensive) wines the sizes usually go up to four liters and offer a better per-ounce value.

6. Don`t buy the high priced spread. There are thousands of wines and spirits on the American market. Those brands that have powerful advertising and marketing people behind them are obviously the ones we hear about the most.

Tacked onto the price of each case of such promoted brands there is 50 cents to $20.00 or more that goes into paying the promotion people.

For instance, ``Mouton-Cadet`` and ``Blue Nun`` are widely advertised brand names of well-made and decent French and German wines, respectively. But look at the labels and you will find the words appellation Bordeaux controlee on the ``Mouton-Cadet`` and Liebfraumilch on the ``Blue Nun.``

Those are legal buzz words which identify these specific types of wines and their taste natures. But these same buzz words appear on other wines as well, wines that don`t have promoted names but which are good and decent versions of the same themes. Try this generic route with blind tastings and see for yourself if the ``high-priced spread`` is worth it for you.

7. Become a map detective. Pouilly-Fuisse is a very well-known name. It`s a dry, white French wine made from Chardonnay grapes grown in southern Burgundy. It is expensive out of proportion to other wines of its type grown literally right next door.

Near the town of Macon in the south of the Burgundy region of France lies a small vineyard area which has the legal right to grow wines called

``Pouilly-Fuisse.`` Surrounding it and nt much begger are three areas which are the legal growing areas for wine named ``St.-Veran.`` A much larger area, perhaps five times the size of the Pouilly-Fuisse and St.-Veran together, is a the growing area for wines called ``Macon-Villages.``

All three areas produce dry white wines from Chardonnay grapes grown under similar conditions. And all three taste, if not identical, at least quite similar to one another. But the latter two wines cost one third to one half Pouilly-Fuisse`s price.

8. Support the ``Third World`` wine countries. It once was necessary to convince wine lovers that the winemakers of the Golden State could produce beverages that ranked with the best that Europe had to offer. Today that isn`t necessary; but the same prejudices attach elsewhere.

In South America, Chile`s Cabernet-based reds are true bargains. In southern and eastern Europe, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Greece make delightful wines from grapes that are unfamiliar to us but which would pay us dividends if we had a little education.

Other under-valued areas include Spain and Portugal, especially for their dry red and sparkling white wines. The Rhone and Loire Valleys of France also offer well-valued dry and full-bodied reds and light and crisp whites.